Our 25-26 Month Old cont.

Sometimes it’s hard to find ways to keep Ashilene entertained all day long, but I found this great website – www.productiveparenting.com  It is filled with fun things to do with your child.  I signed up for the daily email and really enjoy receiving age appropriate ideas that I can try out with Ashilene.  I don’t do all the activities, but it’s so nice to have a growing selection of ideas to build upon.  An activity that is always a hit is Bubbles . . .

She also enjoys playing with Puppets

Painting and/or Coloring

Playing Tea Party with Cousin Jonah

Scooting along on the new bike she got for her birthday . . . She still hasn’t quite figured out the pedals . . . You can’t tell in this picture, but there is a little storage bucket on the back of her little tricycle that she loves putting things in, like Mommy’s purse

Riding in Cousin Ysella’s Barbie Jeep (For days after Ysella’s  party, Ashilene couldn’t stop talking about “Sella’s Beep Beep)

Giving High Fives (We often will say & then give Ashilene a High 5 after she’s done something good and so now she likes to say & give High Fives whenever she sees someone doing something good.  In this picture, her Cousin Kaylana had just gone down the slide & Ashilene excitedly said, “High 5” & they proceeded to High 5.)

Playing with Baby Dolls

Stacking Things (blocks, yogurt containers, etc.)

Watching Sesame Street (especially Elmo, but usually on the computer – She also likes watching Nursery Rhymes, Phonics and the “I Am a Child of God” Mormon Message on YouTube)

Organizing the Magnetic Letters with her Cousin Jonah

Playing on the “Beanbag Mountain” with her friend, Hayden

Sleeping (although she usually prefers to “Sleep with Mommy” – often when she is sleepy or just wants some cuddle time, she will come up to me & say, “Sleep with Mommy”)

For a long time, she never wanted to have any kind of covers on her when she slept and would kick off any that I tried to put on her, but now she requests to have the blanket put on her.

Playing in the Sand (especially with her new sand toys)

Walking around in Mommy’s High Heels

Playing “Birdies” (which is a game on Daddy’s phone – when Daddy gets home from work, she often runs up to him to say, “Hi Daddy!  Birdies?  Birdies!” until he gives in and lets her play)

Turning the Lights On & Off

Trying to ride on the Eliptical Machine

Transferring Objects  (She had a blast transferring rice back and forth between these two cups.)

She and her Cousin Kaylana found endless entertainment transferring lemons back and forth between 2 containers at Lolo & Lola’s house

Having Play Dates with her friend, Sola

Playing with Homemade Play Dough

Discovering how much fun cleaning the mirror can be

Being Silly

Doing Puzzles

Marching & Running around the Condo

Spinning & Singing (In this video, she had taken my mini hymnbook and started spinning around while singing “I Am a Child of God”.  Unfortunately my camera died right before she finished singing, so the very end of the song is cut off.)

Making Music with her Cousin Kaylana

Playing the Keyboard with her Cousins Kaylana & Ysella

Playing with her Musical Instrument Set which includes Triangle & Striker, Cymbals, Soprano Sounder & Mallets, Wrist Bell, Tambourine & Rhythm Sticks (She also likes to turn my pot lids into Cymbals)

Playing Drums (She pulled out these empty containers from our “Craft Cupboard” and turned them into drums on her own.)

She definitely takes after her Daddy in her love of Karaoke

Ashilene loves Nursery.  She often forgets that fact when it’s time to go to Nursery, but once she gets distracted enough by toys for Mommy to slip out, she has a wonderful time!  She is always happy and smiling when we pick her up from Nursery and I know she is learning a lot in there because of things she’ll start saying or singing after Nursery.  After they had a lesson on the Temple, she came home and excitedly started running around and pointing to all the pictures of the temple that we have in our home and happily saying, “I see temple!  I see temple!”  She loves when we actually take her up to the Oakland Temple grounds and she gets to walk around on top of the temple and point to the depiction of Jesus Christ on the temple.  She loves pointing to His pictures and saying, “Jesus Christ.”  Whenever she thinks our prayers are going to long, she will chime in and say, “Jesus Christ, Amen.”  In Nursery, the teachers have a special song that they always sing before the lesson to help the children learn each other’s names.  They have a little teddy bear that they bounce back and forth on the child’s knees while singing, “Her name is Ashilene. Ashilene. Ashilene.  Her name is Ashilene.”  And then they start bouncing the bear on another child’s knees as they sing, “What’s your name?” and then start the song all over again with the next child’s name.  It has been absolutely adorable to see Ashilene recreating this song with her little stuffed dog at home.

Ashilene has lots of songs that she loves to sing including: “The ABC Song”, “Row Row Row Your Boat”, “The Clean Up Song”, “When My Mother Calls Me” and our FHE Song, which is “Happy Family”.  With all the Sesame Street she watches on You Tube, she has also picked up some of the Sesame Street versions of various songs like “Mary Had a Bicycle” and “Big Bird Has a Little Friend”, which are both set to the tune of “Mary Had a Little Lamb”.  Ashilene loves bringing her little keyboard or xylophone over to me to play the tune and she’ll sing along.  I’m not playing in this video, but you can make out the tune she is trying to sing.

She loves counting, but seems to consistently skip from 6 to 11.  She is getting better and better at recognizing her letters and loves to point them out whenever she sees them on a shirt, package, book, etc.  One of my favorites is as we’re driving with the GPS and the letter “E” comes up for “East” and she happily yells out “E!”  Her pronunciation of “S” sounds like “Yes” and her pronunciation of “N” sounds a lot like “M”.  She loves pointing to and saying, “Motorcycle!”  She recognizes the sound of a motorcycle from our condo and will shout out, “Motorcycle!” whenever she hears one passing by.  Some of her favorite phrases include: “Kiss It Better”, “That’s Funny”, “Yuck/Yucky!”, “No Thank You”, “Mine”, “That’s My Pillow”  She knows the names, signs and sounds of more animals.  She especially likes Giraffes.

She also has the cutest pronunciation for what a kitty cat says

She got a forward facing car seat for her birthday, but still seems to prefer her rear facing one.  When she found it out in the condo, she got in it and buckled herself in.

Unlike her cousins, Ashilene is NOT a fan of water.  She probably got this from me because I’m not a huge fan of water myself.  I do however feel that swimming is a very important skill for her to attain.  I am very grateful to my parents for persisting in putting me in swim lessons every summer until I finally did learn how to swim.  I’m still not terribly fond of water, but I am grateful to know that if I needed to, I could swim.  Ashilene and I have been taking a Mommy and Me Class together this summer.

Ashilene is smiling in the above picture because she got to wear her sunglasses and we’re nowhere near the water yet.  The night before the class I was telling her in an excited, happy voice, “You get to go to swim class with Momma tomorrow!  Yay!!!!” and she defiantly said, “No!”  I sadly said, “You don’t want to go to swim class with Mommy?”  and she replied, “Daddy!”  I said, “Oh, you want to go to swim class with Daddy?” and she responded, “Fishing!”

Rojohn loves fishing and Ashilene LOVES holding Daddy’s fishing pole.  She’s actually been going through quite a Daddy’s girl phase and has had some melt downs in church when she couldn’t sit with Daddy because he has to sit on the stand with the bishopric.

We just love our 26 month old!